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Dredd didn't have Danny Boyle.

Just don't put the squeeze on him.

the Bogatyr

When you get to know him, he lets you call him Humphrey.

Satellites.

that's primarily down to not enough letters coming into the Nerve Centre.

If they'd start offering two quid for every letter they published, and five quid for every drawing, then not only would the prog be entirely one long letters page, but I'd be MINTED.  "The Milky Bars are on me!"

Even better, "Tharg strips at Christmas".

I liked the Nerve Centre goings-on, it was sort of like when we saw what was going on behind the stage of the Muppet Show.  Plus, the Thrill Suckers were rather excellent.  I don't think it would work these days simply because I don't think the modern droid designs I've seen for (e.g.) Molch-R look anywhere as good as Burt, AALN-1, and so on.  Perhaps it could work if the scope of Droid Life zoomed out a little bit sometimes to include some Tharg (and Thrill Suckers).

For Origins though, it was back to the 1940s gangster movie Dredd of the Judge Cal radio drama, if anyone remembers that.  Not my bag at all.

Was that the one that was broadcast in five minutes installments on Radio One?  They did another one as well - Apocalypse War?

That's right, series 1 was "The Day the Law Died" and series 2 was "The Apocalypse War".  Dirk Maggs was in charge of these, and, while I like a couple of things he's done, these are awful.  I don't know whether it's only having five minute chunks to tell the story, or he decided that it had to be 'comic-y' and way over the top, but it almost falls into parody/Michael-taking territory.  And yes, we've had gruff Dredd voices but again, this Dredd is woeful.

I have only heard the trailers for the Audible stories, and my main impression was that they sounded too sparse.  It was all too easy to believe The Pit starts with two actors in a studio, not two ranks of Judges standing silently waiting for inspection. (Etc.)  I'm also not that fond of narrated stories, unless it is integrated really well.  When it's unimpressive (as I felt the Audible ones were - again, from very short samples, so what do I know?) I feel like we've jumped from audio drama to talking book.  The BBC dramatised all the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on radio, with Clive Merrison playing Holmes. When they began, they had Watson narrating parts, but as they went on they found their groove and became 100% radio play.  And those later episodes, to my mind, are infinitely better than the earlier ones.

I really like Toby Longsworth as Dredd.  I never had a distinct Dredd voice in my head, but when I first heard Toby (in the Dredd vs Death computer game) it just clicked with me as being 'right'.  The game lead to me discovering the Big Finish audios, which lead me back to reading 2000AD again.  I was very glad to find the same actor playing Dredd on the CDs.

While we're at it .. I remember watching a tv show when I was younger (late 80s / early 90s) which I'm pretty sure was called Frankenstein's Castle and Frankenstein lived in this castle with Dracula and others and the castle was in the middle of a lake ... Anyone remember what this tv show was really called?

"Help, My Cellar's Sprung a Leak" starring Dracula the Dampire and Plumber's Snakenstein?

[Rebellion Presents The José Muñoz Collection]

Rebellion Presents The José Muñoz Collection - Paperback, 128 pages, 21st November 2024

Rebellion presents three action-packed stories from the legendary Lion comic, all featuring the work master of chiaroscuro-style black-and-white art - José Antonio Muñoz.

In 1973, Muñoz worked on three short-lived strips in Lion. A Stitch in Time follows the adventures of a young boy named Stitch Cotton and his alien friend, Varl, after they steal a time machine from the sinister space-master, Mr. Universe. Lost in Limbo Land (written by 2000 AD regular, Chris Lowder), follows Barry Smith - a studious bookworm who is struck by lightning and flung into a world of Norse myth and legend. The final strip, Sark the Sleeper, sees a starship commander accidently woken from hypersleep by two boys who are completely unaware that they passengers flying through deep space in search of a new home.

Frank Pepper had a lengthy career writing for British comics. From the 1930s onwards he wrote for a wide variety of story papers including The Champion, Knockout, and The Comet. He is best known as the creator of Roy of the Rovers for Tiger and Captain Condor for Lion. Other well-known strips he worked on include The Spellbinder and Dan Dare. He died in 1988.

[A Stitch in Time]

Rebellion presents three action-packed stories from the legendary Lion comic, all featuring the work master of chiaroscuro-style black-and-white art - José Antonio Muñoz.

In 1973, Muñoz worked on three short-lived strips in Lion. A Stitch in Time follows the adventures of a young boy named Stitch Cotton and his alien friend, Varl, after they steal a time machine from the sinister space-master, Mr. Universe. Lost in Limbo Land (written by 2000 AD regular, Chris Lowder), follows Barry Smith - a studious bookworm who is struck by lightning and flung into a world of Norse myth and legend. The final strip, Sark the Sleeper, sees a starship commander accidently woken from hypersleep by two boys who are completely unaware that they passengers flying through deep space in search of a new home.

[Rebellion Presents The José Muñoz Collection]

Rebellion Presents The José Muñoz Collection - Paperback, 128 pages, 21st November 2024

No other details so here's José Muñoz's website and an interview from 2017.

[Rebellion Presents The José Muñoz Collection]

Rebellion Presents The José Muñoz Collection - Paperback, 128 pages, 21st November 2024

No other details at present.

...but Funt's gone rogue!!!

The "um... synthi sausage" line has gone down in history but taking a step back it's a pretty bizarre thing for Dredd to be saying. To what question, and to whom, is he answering? Why does he have one on a fork while on his bike? Is that fork part of the Justice Department's standard equipment for motorcycle officers? So many questions.

I think the simplest explanation is that Dredd has found the sausage-and-fork on the road.  He spots something on the ground in front of him as he patrols and thinks it may be a clue, but can't make out what it is at speed.  He scoops it up, stares at it and realises... it's a synthi-sausage?!  After all, I'm sure we've all been out driving* at one time or another and taken a fork in the road.

The second explanation is that Dredd felt something hit him in the head, and grabbed it as it bounced into his lap.  Again, he snatched it up and examined it, only to realise the offending item was a deliberately-hurled sausage on a fork.  Result: three-to-five in the juve cubes for Tucker, Gonch, Hollo, and Zammo. 


* Not together**
** Not until we club together for a forum-seating clown car that we can all squeeze into.

"No, I'm Rogue_Trooper_11235!"

Well spotted!  The room is fairly 'full' of toys and amusements, I guess to highlight the 'why would I want to read a book when I've got all this to play with' angle.

I seem to remember we get a good view of the t-shirt at the start, too, just before the grandfather sits down.